On the next day he spoke with Dona Mirano. There was little to say
but to observe the courtesies appropriate to this occasion, for
Dona Mirana and her daughter had spoken long together already; and
of one thing he could say little, and indeed was dumb when asked
of it, and that was the question of his home. And then he said
that he had a castle; and when Dona Mirana asked him where it was
he said vaguely it was to the North. He trusted the word of the
King of Shadow Valley and so he spoke of his castle as a man
speaks the truth. And when she asked him of his castle again,
whether on rock or river or in leafy lands, he began to describe
how its ten towers stood, being builded of a rock that was
slightly pink, and how they glowed across a hundred fields,
especially at evening; and suddenly he ceased, perceiving all in a
moment he was speaking unwittingly in the words of Don Alvidar and
describing to Dona Mirana that rose-pink castle on Ebro. And Dona
Mirana knew then that there was some mystery about Rodriguez'
home.
She spoke kindly to Rodriguez, yet she neither gave her consent
nor yet withheld it, and he knew there was no immediate hope in
her words. Graceful as were his bows as he withdrew, he left with
scarcely another word to say. All day his castle hung over him
like a cloud, not nebulous and evanescent only, but brooding
darkly, boding storms, such as the orange blossoms dread.
He walked again in the garden with Serafina, but Dona Mirana was
never far, and the glamour of the former evening, lit by one star,
was driven from the garden by his anxieties about that castle of
which he could not speak.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255